1970 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1970.

Events

 * January 16 – The Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus opens with a performance of Georg Büchner's Dantons Tod.
 * March – Magdalena Mouján's story "Gu ta Gutarrak" ("We and Ours") in Basque is suppressed by the authorities in Francoist Spain.
 * June 10 – The English novelist Anthony Burgess delivers an inflammatory lecture, "Obscenity and the Arts", at the University of Malta; its reception leads to him leaving Malta. He has begun a novel that will become Earthly Powers (1980).
 * June 17 – The première of David Storey's play Home at the Royal Court Theatre, London, is directed by Lindsay Anderson and stars Sir John Gielgud and Sir Ralph Richardson.
 * July 7 – The English publisher Sir Allen Lane dies age 67 having suffered cancer. On August 21 his paperback imprint Penguin Books is acquired by Pearson.
 * August 27 – England's Royal Shakespeare Company introduces a revolutionary production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream directed by Peter Brook, at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon.
 * November 20 – The playwright Fadil Paçrami becomes Chairman of the Parliament of Albania.
 * November 25 – In Tokyo, the Japanese author and Tatenokai militia leader Yukio Mishima (三島由紀夫, 45) and others take over the headquarters of the Japan Self-Defense Forces in an attempted coup d'état. Mishima commits seppuku (public ritual suicide) when he fails to sway the public to his right-wing politics, which include restoring the powers of the Emperor.
 * December 5 – Dario Fo premières his play Accidental Death of an Anarchist (Morte accidentale di un anarchico) at Varese in Italy.
 * unknown dates
 * Len Deighton's Bomber, set in 1943, becomes the first published novel to have been written on a word processor, an IBM MT/ST.
 * The novel Deliverance by the American poet James Dickey is published; it will go on to be named among the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century by an editorial board of the American Modern Library.
 * An unexpurgated edition of John Cleland's Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, 1748–1749) appears in the U.K. without legal challenge.
 * Bohumil Hrabal's books Domácí úkoly (Home Work) and Poupata (Buds) are suppressed by the communist authorities in Czechoslovakia.

Fiction

 * Dritëro Agolli – Komisari Memo (Commissar Memo)
 * Poul Anderson – Tau Zero
 * Abdelhamid ben Hadouga - The South Wind (novel)
 * Thomas Berger – Vital Parts
 * Thomas Bernhard – The Lime Works (Das Kalkwerk)
 * Melvyn Bragg – A Place in England
 * John Braine – Stay with Me Till Morning
 * Wallace Breem – Eagle in the Snow
 * Jimmy Breslin – The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight
 * Taylor Caldwell – Great Lion of God
 * John Dickson Carr – The Ghosts' High Noon
 * Agatha Christie – Passenger to Frankfurt
 * Robertson Davies – Fifth Business
 * L. Sprague de Camp
 * The Reluctant Shaman and Other Fantastic Tales
 * Warlocks and Warriors (ed.)
 * Samuel R. Delany – The Fall of the Towers (trilogy)
 * Michel Déon – Les Poneys sauvages
 * James Dickey – Deliverance
 * José Donoso – The Obscene Bird of Night (El obsceno pájaro de la noche)
 * Lawrence Durrell – Nunquam
 * Vincent Eri – The Crocodile
 * Nuruddin Farah – From a Crooked Rib
 * J. G. Farrell – Troubles
 * Juan Goytisolo – Count Julian (Reivindicación del conde don Julián)
 * L.P. Hartley – My Sisters' Keeper
 * Anne Hébert – Kamouraska
 * Ernest Hemingway – Islands in the Stream
 * Susan Hill – I'm the King of the Castle
 * Pamela Hansford Johnson – The Honours Board
 * Anna Kavan – Julia and the Bazooka
 * Jaan Kross – Between Three Plagues (part 1)
 * Halldór Laxness – Innansveitarkronika
 * Ira Levin – This Perfect Day
 * Mario Levrero – La ciudad
 * H. P. Lovecraft – The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions
 * Peter Lovesey – Wobble to Death
 * John D. MacDonald – The Long Lavender Look
 * Eric Malpass – Oh My Darling Daughter
 * Ngaio Marsh – When in Rome
 * Yukio Mishima (三島由紀夫) – The Decay of the Angel (天人五衰, Tennin Gosui; last in The Sea of Fertility tetralogy)
 * Brian Moore – Fergus
 * Toni Morrison – The Bluest Eye
 * Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk – Harpoon of the Hunter (ᐊᖑᓇᓱᑦᑎᐅᑉ ᓇᐅᒃᑯᑎᖓ)
 * Larry Niven – Ringworld
 * John Jay Osborn, Jr. – The Paper Chase
 * Abel Posse – Los bogavantes
 * Mary Renault – Fire from Heaven
 * Kurban Said – Ali and Nino
 * Erich Segal – Love Story
 * Sidney Sheldon – The Naked Face
 * Clark Ashton Smith – Other Dimensions
 * Manuel Scorza – Drums for Rancas
 * Muriel Spark – The Driver's Seat
 * Mary Stewart – The Crystal Cave
 * Alan Sillitoe – A Start in Life
 * Leon Uris – QB VII
 * Jack Vance – The Pnume
 * Gore Vidal – Two Sisters
 * Patrick White – The Vivisector
 * Venedikt Yerofeyev – Moscow-Petushki (Moscow to the End of the Line; samizdat publication)
 * Roger Zelazny – Nine Princes in Amber

Children and young people

 * Lloyd Alexander – The Marvelous Misadventures of Sebastian
 * Rev. W. Awdry – Duke the lost Engine (twenty-fifth in The Railway Series of 42 books by him and his son Christopher Awdry)
 * Richard Bach – Jonathan Livingston Seagull
 * Nina Bawden – The Birds on the Trees
 * Judy Blume – Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret
 * John Burningham – Mr Gumpy's Outing
 * Betsy Byars – Summer of the Swans
 * John Christopher (Sam Youd) – The Guardians (science fiction)
 * Roald Dahl – Fantastic Mr Fox
 * Leon Garfield and Edward Blishen – The God Beneath the Sea
 * Judith Kerr – Mog the Forgetful Cat (first in the Mog series of 17 books)
 * Ruth Manning-Sanders – A Book of Devils and Demons
 * Dr. Seuss – Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?
 * Ruth Park
 * The Muddle-Headed Wombat in the Springtime
 * The Muddle-Headed Wombat on the River
 * Bill Peet
 * The Whingdingdilly
 * The Wump World
 * Maurice Sendak – In the Night Kitchen
 * Isaac Bashevis Singer – A Day of Pleasure: Stories of a Boy Growing Up in Warsaw
 * E. B. White – The Trumpet Of The Swan
 * Annette Tison and Talus Taylor - Barbapapa

Drama

 * Ama Ata Aidoo – Anowa
 * Robert Bolt – Vivat! Vivat Regina!
 * Dario Fo – Accidental Death of an Anarchist
 * Michael Frayn – The Two of Us (4 1-act plays)
 * Trevor Griffiths – Occupations
 * Christopher Hampton – The Philanthropist
 * Lorraine Hansberry – Les Blancs
 * Welcome Msomi – uMabatha
 * Terence Rattigan – A Bequest to the Nation
 * Anthony Shaffer – Sleuth
 * Alexander Vampilov – Duck Hunting («Утиная охота», Utinaya okhota, published; first performed 1976)
 * Derek Walcott – Dream on Monkey Mountain

Poetry

 * L. Sprague de Camp – Demons and Dinosaurs
 * Ted Hughes – Crow

Non-fiction

 * Theodor W. Adorno (posthumously) – Aesthetic Theory (Asthetische Theorie)
 * Hannah Arendt – On Violence
 * Roland Barthes – S/Z
 * Pierre Berton – The National Dream
 * Jim Bouton – Ball Four
 * Dee Brown – Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
 * James MacGregor Burns – Roosevelt: The Soldier Of Freedom
 * Henri Charrière – Papillon
 * Elizabeth David – Spices, Salt and Aromatics in the English Kitchen
 * Edward De Bono – Lateral Thinking: creativity step by step
 * August Derleth – Thirty Years of Arkham House, 1939-1969: A History and Bibliography
 * Michel Foucault – Les Mots et les choses: Une archéologie des sciences humaines (The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences)
 * Germaine Greer – The Female Eunuch
 * Helene Hanff – 84 Charing Cross Road
 * Arthur Janov – The Primal Scream
 * Uwe Johnson – Anniversaries. From the Life of Gesine Cresspahl (Jahrestage: Aus dem Leben von Gesine Cresspahl; begins publication)
 * Christopher Lloyd – The Well-Tempered Garden
 * Norman Mailer – Of a Fire on the Moon
 * Dumas Malone – Jefferson the President: First Term, 1801-1805
 * Mahathir Mohamad – The Malay Dilemma
 * Kate Millett – Sexual Politics
 * Nancy Mitford – Frederick the Great
 * Robin Morgan (ed.) – Sisterhood Is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings from the Women's Liberation Movement
 * Harold Perkin – The Age of the Railway
 * J. B. Priestley – The Edwardians
 * Albert Speer – Inside the Third Reich
 * Alvin Toffler – Future Shock

Births

 * January 25 – Stephen Chbosky, American novelist and screenwriter
 * February 28 – Daniel Handler, American novelist
 * March 6 – Simona Vinci, Italian fiction writer
 * March 12 – Dave Eggers, American writer, editor and publisher
 * March 20 – Michele Jaffe, American author
 * March 26 – Martin McDonagh, British-born Irish playwright
 * May 20 – Dorthe Nors, Danish fiction writer
 * May 26 – Alex Garland, English novelist
 * June 6 – Sarah Dessen, American novelist
 * July 22 – Doug Johnstone, Scottish crime fiction writer
 * August 27 - Ann Aguirre, American speculative fiction writer
 * September 10 – Phaswane Mpe, South African novelist (died 2004)
 * September 16 – Nick Sagan, American novelist and screenwriter
 * October 27 – Jonathan Stroud, English fantasy writer
 * November 7 – Chris Adrian, American novelist
 * November 24 – Marlon James, Jamaican novelist
 * November 27 – Han Kang, South Korean novelist
 * December 21 – Mohamedou Ould Salahi, Mauritanian author and former Guantánamo detainee
 * unknown dates
 * Raja'a Alem, Saudi Arabian writer
 * Roberta Dapunt, Italian poet
 * Nathan Englander, American novelist and short story writer
 * Neel Mukherjee, Indian novelist
 * Faruk Šehić, Bosnian poet and fiction writer

Deaths

 * January 10 – Charles Olson, American modernist poet (liver cancer, born 1910)
 * January 29 – B. H. Liddell Hart, English military historian (born 1895)
 * February 2 – Bertrand Russell, English philosopher (born 1872)
 * February 4 – Louise Bogan, American poet (born 1897)
 * February 20 – Sophie Treadwell, American dramatist and journalist (born 1885)
 * February 21 – Johannes Semper, Estonian writer, translator and politician (born 1892)
 * March 11 – Erle Stanley Gardner, American writer (born 1889)
 * March 15 – Arthur Adamov, Russian-French playwright (born 1908)
 * March 21 – Marlen Haushofer, Austrian novelist (born 1920)
 * March 29 – Vera Brittain, English novelist, memoirist and poet (born 1893)
 * April 11 – John O'Hara, American novelist (cardiovascular disease, born 1905)
 * May 7 – Jack Jones, Welsh novelist (born 1884)
 * May 12 – Nelly Sachs, Jewish German poet and dramatist (born 1891)
 * June 2 – Giuseppe Ungaretti, Italian modernist poet and writer (born 1888)
 * June 3 – Ruth Sawyer, American children's writer and novelist (born 1880)
 * June 7 – E. M. Forster, English novelist (born 1879)
 * June 16 – Elsa Triolet, French novelist (born 1896)
 * July 7 – Allen Lane, English publisher (born 1902)
 * July 15 – Eric Berne, Canadian-born psychiatrist and author (heart attack, born 1910)
 * September 1 – François Mauriac, French novelist (born 1885)
 * September 25 – Erich Maria Remarque, German novelist (All Quiet On The Western Front) (born 1898)
 * September 28 – John Dos Passos, American novelist (born 1896)
 * October 18 – Máirtín Ó Cadhain, Irish language writer (born 1906)
 * November 23 – Alf Prøysen, Norwegian author, musician and children's writer (born 1914)
 * November 25 – Yukio Mishima (三島 由紀夫), Japanese author (seppuku, born 1925)
 * unknown date – Racey Helps, English children's author and illustrator (born 1913)

Awards

 * Nobel Prize for Literature: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Canada

 * See 1970 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

 * Prix Goncourt: Michel Tournier, Le Roi des Aulnes
 * Prix Médicis French: Camille Bourniquel, Sélinonte ou la Chambre impériale
 * Prix Médicis International: Luigi Malerba, Saut de la mort

United Kingdom

 * Booker Prize: Bernice Rubens, The Elected Member
 * Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Leon Garfield and Edward Blishen, The God Beneath the Sea
 * Cholmondeley Award: Kathleen Raine, Douglas Livingstone, Edward Brathwaite
 * Eric Gregory Award: Helen Frye, Paul Mills, John Mole, Brian Morse, Alan Perry, Richard Tibbitts
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Lily Powell, The Bird of Paradise
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston
 * Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Roy Fuller

United States

 * Hugo Award: Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
 * Nebula Award: Larry Niven, Ringworld
 * Newbery Medal for children's literature: William H. Armstrong, Sounder
 * Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Charles Gordone, No Place To Be Somebody
 * Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Jean Stafford, Collected Stories
 * Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Richard Howard, Untitled Subjects

Elsewhere

 * Miles Franklin Award: Dal Stivens, A Horse of Air
 * Alfaguara Prize: Carlos Droguett, Todas esas muertes
 * Premio Nadal: Jesús Fernández Santos, Libro de las memorias de las cosas
 * Viareggio Prize: Nello Saito, Dentro e fuori